National heritage and traditions shape our everyday lives. History is so much more than a documentation of what once was. It is the very foundation of how our society is today. For a long time my nationalities created problems for me, and to some extent even today. In recent years, I have learned that I am not Chinese or Swedish, and that I do not have to be any of them, but I’m a selection; a synthesis of these two, if not more. Rather than showing the differences between these two cultures I chose to focus on what they have in common. Through two materials; paper and silk, both with roots from China and Sweden, depicted as a shelf and a carpet.

National heritage and traditions shape our everyday lives. History is so much more than a documentation of what once was. It is the very foundation of how our society is today.
For a long time my nationalities created problems for me, and to some extent even today. In recent years, I have learned that I am not Chinese or Swedish, and that I do not have to be any of them, but I’m a selection; a synthesis of these two, if not more. Rather than showing the differences between these two cultures I chose to focus on what they have in common. Through two materials, both with roots from China and Sweden, depicted as a shelf and a carpet.

PAPER
Due to the invention of papermaking and printing in ancient China, a skill that spread by the Silk Road and Sweden mastered in modern times, it was possible to preserve knowledge and stories for the next generation. Therefore, it seemed more than fitting that the depiction would demonstrate that, hence the shape of a shelf; a furniture designed to archive experiences. And to go even one step further, the shelf is only made ​​of paper sheets, those books are made of.
The design is straightforward, clean, and honest. The shelf sides consist of overlapping paper sheets to extend the shelf height and are laminated in five layers, as well as all the shelves. Each shelf has a number of tabs that are threaded through the shelf sides and secured by bending the tabs inward, and shapes what I call the “the love handles”.

National heritage and traditions shape our everyday lives. History is so much more than a documentation of what once was. It is the very foundation of how our society is today. For a long time my nationalities created problems for me, and to some extent even today. In recent years, I have learned that I am not Chinese or Swedish, and that I do not have to be any of them, but I’m a selection; a synthesis of these two, if not more. Rather than showing the differences between these two cultures I chose to focus on what they have in common. Through two materials, both with roots from China and Sweden, depicted as a shelf and a carpet.

SILK
According to the legend silk was discovered by Lei Zu, a Chinese empress and wife of the mythical Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan, who was said to have ruled China around 3000 BC. During the 15th century the Kingdom of Sweden made an attempt at self-production, but this was short-lived and, despite a royal ban on all imports of silk, almost all silk weaving mills shut down during the 17th century.
Even today, this natural fiber is unsurpassed and I decided that the depiction would be a hommage to silk, in the form of a rug, an object which both highlights its luster, but also its strength, to cope against stresses. Inspired by two different types of carpets; knotted Chinese carpet, woven with senneh knots and lacks fringes and the Swedish rag rug that is woven with plain weave and has fringes on the end. The result is the synthesis of both.